


Hung out to dry

by binds



Series: They could shoot but that's not fun [1]
Category: Berserk
Genre: Band of the Hawk is a crime syndicate, Casca is second-in-command, Gen, Guts and Judeau are capos, a modern gangster AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2018-10-29 00:58:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10843149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/binds/pseuds/binds
Summary: Most of all, Casca knows how important it is for family members to stay together, to always have at least one other partner on jobs.Now, she is splayed on her back on the damp floor in some dim, stinking warehouse on the outskirts of downtown, too focused on finding a way out of this to feel foolish. The back of her head is unpleasantly sticky with blood, throbs from having been slammed into the cement floor only a few moments previous.





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

 

Casca is not a stupid woman, nor is she arrogant.

 

She knows how to lead and how to fall into line, is familiar with the intricacies of both roles equally well. Through years of training and discipline, working with others has become second-nature to her. She's often left to break up petty squabbles between her soldiers, a voice of reason amidst a sea of fragile egos.

 

(She'll be the first to admit she's not perfect; she's almost come to blows on several occasions with one hotheaded capo in particular, but she knows her shit. She is not Griffith's underboss for nothing.)

 

Now, she is splayed on her back on the damp floor in some dim, stinking warehouse on the outskirts of downtown, too focused on finding a way out of this to feel foolish. The back of her head is unpleasantly sticky with blood, throbs from having been slammed into the cement floor only a few moments previous.

 

The woman-child on top of her is straddling her hips with a gleeful smile on her otherwise mousy features, a thin left arm pressing Casca's right shoulder into the floor. Her pale pink jumpsuit is unzipped enough to reveal a strappy black leather bustier studded in gleaming silver clasps, grants a peek of some monstrosity of a matching thong. A heavy-looking choker sits on her pale throat, a chain dangling from its center holding the whole thing together. 

 

Casca's too momentarily out of it to figure what any of this means, but notes that the girl's also holding a weapon in her right hand, a sort of whip that Casca can see has been altered with industrial-sized razor blades woven into its tips. Not practical for combat, but it's clear that a fight, a struggle, is not what this chick has in mind. 

 

She can't help it, her stomach turns. The girl is perceptive, wiggles atop her elatedly at her expression. 

 

"Pretty, huh?" Her voice is neutral and light. Mocking.

 

Casca tries not to start as the girl shoves her beloved black leather jacket halfway down her arms, fully exposing her own plain white tank top. 

 

"How _butch_ ," she says through her painted grin as she trails a finger down Casca's chest, stopping just short of her muscled abs that the cropped shirt doesn't quite cover.

 

Even as she shivers, Casca stares back at her coolly and wordlessly. She almost rears for the rage bubbling in her gut at being touched like this. She would have easily broken out of the woman's rather weak hold on her and had the bitch on the ground long ago, if not for the blond man looking over them detachedly. He is casually twirling the hunting knife in his right hand, the ends of its toothed blade still dripping with Casca’s blood, and Casca knows he's ready to spring at her slightest movement.

 

Casca takes stock: She feels her left side wet with blood from the stab wound the man had inflicted on her earlier, courtesy of the surprise strike that had taken her down in the first place. She's certainly had worse, and her blood feels like it’s seeping out rather sluggishly, a good sign. But she also knows that on its own, the wound is deep enough to have her bleeding out in a matter of less than a few hours. The knife's serrated edge means nothing's going to heal cleanly, not that it matters. Casca can't remember just how many jagged scars dot her body.

 

She closes her eyes for a blessed moment. 

 

She had been careless, hadn't even noticed the presence of the girl's scrawny guardian standing near her, undetectable as though he lay in wait in her very shadow. Nor had she expected that he would be so quick, or so formidable with a knife. He moved maybe as swiftly as Casca, which was surprising in itself, and he did so airily, like a gust of wind had propelled his lithe form forward. 

 

Well, Casca knows she had been careless coming here in the first place. 

 

When one of her sources had tipped her to the existence of the girl and her seeming curiosity in the Hawks, Casca had kept it from the rest of them.

 

Even now, she can’t really say why she had ultimately kept it to herself. She’s never been one to pull this sort of thing, and it’s the sort of stunt she would lecture her men’s ears off for. She had planned on informing Griffith immediately, had made a file with the intel—bought and paid for—and fully intended to hand it over. But she had walked into his study at the wrong moment, saw Griffith smiling at Guts like he was the sun itself, the center of the fucking universe. It had all but knocked the wind out of her, made her forget what she was there to report in the first place. And so she had walked away, unnoticed, a sour feeling in her belly. 

 

It didn’t seem so important anyway: A little princess with too much time and money on her hands, Farnese de Vandimion. Daughter of a political bigwig, she had taken an interest and began sending cronies to gather intel on the Hawks. Perhaps she had even thought she’d been smooth about it.

 

Over the course of the next few weeks, Casca had gathered information herself, would steal away from the house during dead hours to trail the little girl and her keeper; her own half-brother, well-hidden and born from an aborted dalliance of her father's, called Serpico. 

 

She had monitored their activities, remaining unseen. Surveillance. It really was below her, a job not suited for the underboss of an organization like the Hawks. 

 

She hadn’t seen anything within those several outings that foretold a situation like this. 

 

Casca knows now, that she is most likely the one who has been watched.

 

But something had made her yearn to be the one to take care of this, her alone. So Griffith could see the value of her work, maybe even look at her—

 

“Lady!” Farnese exclaims shrilly as she backhands Casca across the face harshly, bony knuckles surely to leave a bruise on Casca’s right cheek later. _If there is a later_ , Casca thinks dazedly.

 

“It’s rude to space out,” Farnese says. “when I’m _addressing_ you.”

 

She speaks as though she’s admonishing a five year-old, and Casca reminds herself once more not to act on the spike of irritation the girl’s tone incites. 

 

“Miss Casca, underboss of the Hawks, Griffith’s right-hand man,” Farnese continues. Her gaze sweeps over Casca’s torso shamelessly. 

“ _Well_ , woman. But barely,” she adds, her free hand now resting on Casca’s exposed stomach gently. Casca withholds her wince as the girl prods at the solidness of it purposefully, then harshly digs her dusty pink fingernails into the skin there. Farnese turns away to look back, toward the figure leaning against the wall. 

 

Casca thinks he looks bored, but he snaps to attention when Farnese addresses him.

 

“Hey, Serpico, don’t you think it’s weird they sent the underboss?” He says nothing, probably isn’t even expected to answer her. 

 

“Is she really second-in-command? It was way too easy to get her, and the Hawks are supposed to be another _level_.” Her hand is caressing Casca’s chest now, then inching lower. 

 

In spite of herself, Casca feels a sharp sort of panic in her chest and feels tears welling in her eyes.

 

_Not now, not now, she’s just a little girl_ —

 

“She has a nice face. Hot body,” Eyes still on Serpico, Farnese bunches Casca’s shirt in her hand, exposing more of her tanned skin to the rank air. He doesn’t so much as glance in her direction, all eyes on Farnese. 

“It could be all just for show, maybe they just need the touch of a woman once in a while, need a nice warm cu—“

 

Casca has already seen her chance, cuts Farnese off by using the strength of her core to lunge forward, knocking the girl’s thin body backwards into the ground. The whip moves with her flailing arm toward Casca’s face. Casca sees the blood seeping into the vision of her left eye, blinding it, before she feels the sharp pain of uninterrupted razor cuts on an entire side of her face. 

 

Still, this is far from the worst she’s had.

 

She squeezes her left eye shut, spots Serpico’s movement toward her, knife glinting, knows instinctively it’ll be just a fraction of a second too late—smashes Farnese’s face toward the ground with her right knee and uses the momentum to pop up.

 

Serpico’s eyes dart to Farnese’s still form, then back to Casca, are now wide open and murderous as he stabs toward her with too much force. He misses and crashes into the ground, graceful fighting style compromised. She had seen his lunge coming this time and dodged, rolling into the ground and immediately going into a defensive stance. 

 

Her feet are wide apart and her knees bent as she eyes him, waiting for the next move. She reaches for the medium-sized fixed-blade knife in her combat boot. It’s there for emergencies. She's no expert, but she can handle herself. 

 

The adrenaline rush that had given her enough of her agility and strength back is already fading. 

There’s no way she can run and risk turning her back to him, the man called Serpico is uninjured and undoubtedly quicker.

 

“You’re dead, Miss Casca of the Hawks,” He says lowly as he draws himself upward, demeanor calm again even as his charge lays on the ground—knocked out, golden hair splayed on the filthy concrete and partially matted with blood. 

 

“You're nothing but a criminal,” He murmurs, tone dripping in disdain. “And you’ll die here, alone.”

 

Then, like a switch is flipped, he crumples to the ground, groaning in pain.

 

Casca realizes that there are now two daggers embedded in his legs, one right above each of the man’s kneecaps. _Critical_ , she thinks. 

 

_Judeau_ , she thinks.

 

“Judeau!” She gasps, whipping around to see him and then immediately regrets it as a wave of dizziness almost takes her down. 

 

His arms are around her solidly, supporting her before she stumbles. He’s frowning, concern and something else pulling at his face. He opens his mouth to say something.

 

“Casca,” It’s Griffith’s voice, even and calm. It’s not loud, yet its sound fills every corner of the warehouse. She sees, even though the blood is now trickling into her good eye too, he is standing at the entrance of the warehouse, Guts at his side. 

 

_Fuck._

 

She guesses Serpico looks like he’s about to get up, because Guts saunters past them wordlessly and she hears the sound of a heavy punch (most likely cracking bone), and the thump of dead weight falling to the floor.

 

“I wonder just what you were trying to accomplish here,” Griffith continues, still addressing her. His voice is even, but it belies a sharp, cool sort of anger. His eyes are hard as they sweep over her, and she's instantly hyperaware of her own injuries. She must look pathetic.

 

Casca knows she should be mortified, beyond ashamed of her actions and their resulting circumstances. She should also probably be frightened, but with her energy no longer focused on survival, she feels herself losing her faculties. She pulls at the sleeves of her leather jacket desperately, the one he had given to her so long ago, tries to regain herself.

"I," she says, tasting iron in her mouth. 

Judeau's hold on her tightens in response. "Casca," He says softly, to no one in particular.  

“She doesn’t look good, Griffith." Guts, Casca vaguely thinks. Voice like gravel. "Looks like she’s gonna—“

 

 

And she does.

 

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Casca touches her hand to the left side of her face, lets her fingers linger there for a moment. The bandages Judeau had carefully applied are soaked now, heavy with water.

 

She sits in the bathtub with a hot shower running, the spray of the nozzle on her skin constant and soothing. The water is already above her chest, and she belatedly realizes it is beginning to take on a pink hue. 

 

"Fuck," she murmurs, probably for the hundredth time in the past hour alone. Yet she doesn't move, childishly wants to stay in the hot water’s embrace forever. 

 

She had managed to make her way from her bed to the bathroom—not gracefully, but she took it as a victory that the searing pain in her side had not crumpled her to her knees.

 

She had awoken in her own bed with an IV needle stuck in her arm, thought for a terrifying moment that she was in a hospital. It had been early morning, the house too-quiet. 

 

Then, she remembered the slight girl with the grin of a sadist, her half-brother and his quickness and his knife. A sinking feeling in her stomach, Casca had felt an almost desperate urge to take a bath—one of her favorite methods to make sense of loud, messy thoughts.

 

She sinks into the water, submerging herself. 

 

Rather calmly, she has come to the conclusion that it is a very real possibility that she could be dismissed from the Hawks. 

 

She had intentionally and methodically gone behind Griffith’s back—gotten herself injured in the process. Even worse, she had left quite a mess. The Hawks did not leave messes, nor did they send high-ranking members on petty excursions like information gathering.

 

And Casca had gone in, equipped only with a knife and the false belief that she had the upper hand. Sloppy.

 

She comes back up from the water, takes a sharp breath when her side throbs in response to her movement. 

 

She’s stuck on the resulting question: Now what? Casca can’t confront that without a measure of panic. This place has been her home since she was twelve, these people have been her only friends, her only connections. She knows very well she has nowhere else to go.

 

Casca breathes in the steamy air deeply, exhales as though she is cleansing her body of the very thought. She begins shampooing the blood clumping her hair, the smell of mint and coconut another welcome, familiar diversion. She stands up carefully and gets to work on scrubbing her body clean, vaguely notes the smattering of extra bruises on her skin. 

 

The trek back to her bed is painful, and she uses every muscle in her body to make sure she doesn’t fall. She plops onto bed, winces. The bandages on her face and side are essentially useless now, waterlogged and slipping off her skin. She elects to rip them off, bites her pillow to suppress a short pained yelp, and lets the bandages fall to her bedside. She leaves the ones on her face, doesn't think she can handle that. She’s too exhausted to rummage through her drawers for clothes, wraps her worn robe around herself instead.

 

She can't help but stare at her wounded side. The edges of the slice are closed, cleanly sewn together with stitches. Her mouth quirks up; she thinks Judeau’s probably never sewn a sloppy stitch in his life. She glances over at her bedside table, sees her phone—plugged in and charging—and checks the time on it. Half past seven in the morning. Breakfast is at eight sharp. She can't even think about food right now, sighs and listens for the distant clinking of pans and the rumble of drawers being opened and shut. Her eyelids grow heavy, and she feels a pleasant warmth that lulls her to sleep. 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“—off the IV?” 

 

Casca stirs at the sound, realizes her bare legs are kind of cold. Then the pain in her body registers, and she sucks in a sharp breath. She looks up, sees Judeau with something like frustration in his face—a rare look on him—and can only blink.

 

“You know, the IV was there for a reason.” He says blandly, picks up the end of the tube which she had left resting on the bedside table. His face is unreadable, and it’s unsettling to say the least. She can only offer him a weak, sheepish sort of smile in return. 

 

“Had to take a bath, sorry. All that blood.” She offers, scrunches up her face, waits for him to give that famously easygoing chuckle, the one that says “I am so sick of your shit, but I love you.” 

 

She doesn’t receive it, can't help but deflate a bit. God, this is serious.

 

“You,” Judeau murmurs, looks at her. Then he turns away, sees her exposed side and tenses up. It registers that she's only wearing her robe, which has fallen open considerably. She pulls it over her chest a bit more.

 

“You took the fuckin’ bandages off too, _really_?”

 

“I told you, I needed to—“

 

“And it didn't occur to you that maybe with the hole in your side and slashes on your face, you could've waited for someone to come help?” His words come fast and sharp, angry. They cut through the uncharacteristic silence of the house.

 

“Judeau, I really didn't—“

 

“Do you realize how difficult it was to patch that up?” His voice is softer again. He begins to rifle through the container of assorted medical tools he had brought, grabs bandages and a small bottle of alcohol. It’s a running joke among them all that Judeau is the only one that could ever find anything in that mess of a kit. 

 

“Look, I realize this isn't the time for a conversation. You need to rest.” He says, preparing to re-wrap the bandages. “Hold still.”

 

To Judeau’s surprise she jolts up, uses the headboard as support despite the screaming pain in her side.

 

“A _conversation_? I haven't been able to get a single word in, I need to know what the hell’s going on!”

 

He looks at her for a long moment, slowly puts down the supplies in his hands. 

 

“Unbelievable,” he says, runs his fingers through his bangs, brow furrowed.

 

“What's going on is that you almost died and everyone’s worried.” He says loudly, fiercely, and his breath catches a bit on “died”.

 

There's only one thing she really wants to know.

 

“And?” She pushes. She wants to hear him say it, despite the nervous fluttering in her gut. She imagines Griffith wants her out as soon as she’s able to walk properly.

 

Judeau sighs. “What you did was very stupid, Casca.” His eyes, especially bright and green for the sunlight filtering through the windows, are steady on hers. He does not look angry anymore, only exasperated.

 

She makes a short noise of affirmation. 

 

“But you know that—you _knew_ that,” He amends. “And none of us can figure out why you did it. It honestly makes no sense. It’s not like you at all.” 

 

It feels like his eyes are boring into her. 

 

She feels an unpleasant warmth rush to her face and looks away from his steady gaze, focuses on the blank screen of the cell phone at her side. She thinks about Griffith’s face when Guts is in the room—opens her mouth, not quite sure how to phrase it.

 

“Does Griffith want me gone?”

 

The words leave her mouth, somehow feel similar to her ripping off of the bandages. She had spoken it out loud, openly acknowledged her possible reality. There is a finality to it that she would have preferred to avoid.

 

Judeau blinks, then looks at her, clearly caught off-guard. 

 

“Wait, _what_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Casca has severe imposter syndrome actually, fight me on it


	3. Chapter 3

 

The door to Griffith’s study swings open, and of course it’s Guts who saunters out, casual in jeans, a worn black shirt, and a backpack slung over his shoulder. He spots Casca, whose back is pressed to the wall facing the study, and does a double take; she shifts uncomfortably to stand up a bit straighter.

 

She’s embarrassed—she had been in the midst of mustering the courage to knock, too nervous to realize anyone else had even been in the study beside Griffith. 

 

“Uh, hi,” Guts says, visibly making an effort not to stare at the fresh gauze covering the left half of Casca’s face. “You sure you should be up moving already? It didn’t look too good back there.” 

 

“Yeah,” Casca says shortly, not really knowing what to say in the face of Guts’ concern. They have never been close in the few years since he’s joined up, and their longest conversations have always been (rather spirited) arguments. “Well, I feel a lot better now.”

 

It’s been a little over a week since her fuckup, and almost everyone has come to visit her at some point —Rickert, armed with the latest goings-on, Pippin with a heating pad in tow (he’s always been so considerate, in that quiet way of his). Corkus, who is much softer than he acts, had shyly left a “get well” card at her bedside and told her that he and the rest of the guys hope she feels better soon. Judeau has been in her room at least once a day, rewrapping her bandages and making sure her wounds are closing properly. 

 

Guts frowns a bit at that, then his eyes widen like he’s remembering something, and then, to Casca’s bewilderment, he’s clumsily rifling through his plain black backpack. After several moments of loud rustling, he seems to find what he’s looking for and timidly offers it to Casca: a small, red hardcover book. 

 

“Here, I was gonna ask Rickert to drop this off for you, but—I mean, since you’re already here,” he mumbles and looks away, letting his sentence trail off. 

 

Casca stands there in shock for a moment, but luckily, remembers basic courtesy, and takes the book.

 

“It’s just something to pass the time since you’re, uh, gonna be tied up for awhile,” he adds quickly, noting her confused expression.

 

“Uh, thanks,” She says eloquently, and looks at the cover and its white lettering. _Il Pentamerone_ , and underneath it in smaller print, _The Tale of Tales._

 

“By Giambattista Basile,” she murmurs, letting her fingers fall over the raised lettering. It seems familiar to her, the name rolling off her tongue quite easily. She opens the book to flip through it a bit, its slightly yellowed pages belying its age, although it’s otherwise in good condition. She takes note of the chapter titles: “The She-Bear”, “The Three Enchanted Princes”,“The Dragon”. Did Guts, who prefers to speak in one-word answers and profanity, just gift her a book of fairy tales?

 

She looks up to properly thank him, and maybe ask him how he even knows that she likes to read (it’s something she steals away to do privately—preferably outside of the house—in the rare days of peace and inactivity they get), but to her surprise, the wide hallway is now otherwise empty.

 

“Okay,” she says out loud.

 

She wonders how she didn’t notice him leave; Guts isn’t necessarily known for his stealth, there’s something about his presence that just demands attention, probably owing to his large stature and rough personality. She turns back to Griffith’s study door, which Guts had closed as he exited. She feels the leaden weight in her stomach, briefly forgotten, return.

 

 

While Judeau had reassured her over a week ago that no one wanted her gone, (“Least of all _Griffith_ ,” he’d said with a particularly thoughtful expression) Casca still feels dread at the thought of speaking to him. He had been one of the more notable faces absent from her bedside, although she certainly didn’t expect him to drop by with words of comfort or well-wishes. 

 

She tries not to think about the quiet rage in his voice from that night, and lightly raps on the door to his study. She waits for a response, feeling the weight in her stomach intensify with each passing moment.

 

“Yes?” His voice is always so clear, pointed. It’s his voice that had first made her feel safe. 

 

“Griffith,” she says as steadily as she can. “I want to talk.” 

 

He answers almost immediately. “Come in.”

 

While Griffith’s study is spacious, it is plain; it could be mistaken for a sparsely decorated home office, but for the small conference table at its center. At the end of the room, situated in front of two filled bookcases, is Griffith’s own workspace, a small table with one chair on either side. He is sitting there, hunched over some papers. Griffith’s long, light hair is pulled into a sloppy bun, and his reading glasses are perched on his elegantly retroussé nose. The vision is a rare one, and it makes her chest fill with a very familiar sort of warmth.

 

He doesn’t look up at her as she closes the door, approaches the darkly lacquered table, and sits across from him. 

 

He is still looking over these papers for what feels like forever when he says, almost casually, “I don’t need to tell you how utterly stupid that was.” 

 

“…No,” she manages weakly. 

 

He puts down the papers, leans against his forearms on the table. “I don’t need to tell you that you’ve set everything back, that the consequences are greater than either of us, or that this,” he gestures vaguely with one hand, “works the way it does because everyone knows their place, everyone knows what to do.”

 

She doesn’t say anything, has nothing to say to this. She can only sit, body tense and knotted. And as much as she hates this, she knows she’s the one who’s caused it all. 

 

Then, Griffith looks at her, actually _looks_ at her for the first time throughout this interaction. 

 

“Casca, you’ve been a part of this a long time. You’re my underboss for a reason, and that reason is not because you’re prone to making reckless, _senseless_ decisions,” His clear blue eyes are boring into her, and she tries not to flinch.

 

“I’m not going to ask you for explanations, but I expect that this kind of thing won’t happen again. This was an isolated incident, as far as we’re both concerned, yes?”

 

“Yes,” she says, because that’s all she can will herself to say. She feels frozen as she fully realizes just how crippling it feels to disappoint Griffith, to fail at the only thing she’s ever been useful at: being his underboss.

 

“Right. Now, I can see that you’re walking fine and I expect that your wounds are closed up enough for you to resume your job.” Griffith glances down at his papers again. “I have a few things that need to be done.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MAN! Over a year later and here I am, sorry everyone. If there are still any readers out there, I hope you enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> god I love these kids. OK so first of all: this AU is heavily inspired by the work of @tendiademsart on Tumblr! If you liked this, and even if you didn't, go check out their gorgeous artwork. While this is inspired by their Berserk gangster AU art, I'm not trying to make it seem as though this is THE official written work for their AU because it's definitely not. I saw their art of the AU, got a lot of feelings and ran with it. really, just ran with it. anyway it has touches of paralleling canon re: Band of the Hawk's earlier days, Casca is pining for Griffith, Griffith is in love with/obsessed with Guts, Casca's jealous of Guts and they constantly butt heads. I also really like Farnese's potential as a villain, I hope I did her and Serpico justice with that even though they got beat tf down. Anyway I personally think everyone is gay for Casca, except Griffith who is clearly just actually gay for Guts. I also feel the Hawks in general are very much PROTECT CASCA 2KEVER, although they never get a chance to really put it into action because she's so capable.


End file.
